


Oh Quilly Thing, You Otter Be Mine!!

by SherlockDreadsNaught



Category: Sherlock (TV), otterlock/hedgelock
Genre: John as a hedgehog, M/M, Otterlock, Otters, cute young animals, hedehogs, sherlock as an otter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1219705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockDreadsNaught/pseuds/SherlockDreadsNaught
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who says love can't cross the line of different species?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh Quilly Thing, You Otter Be Mine!!

One day a sleek young otter grew bored with playing in the water, yes actually BORED with PLAYING in the WATER. So the bored young otter sped towards the bank and fairly slithered right out of the water, and lay in the sunshine, allowing it to dry his thick fur.  Drowsing most drowsily the otter began to wonder what to do to ease his utter boredom when a twitching bush caught his eye. Yes, that's right, the bush actually TWITCHED!  As the otter watched in his eager otter-ish way, the bush twitched a few more times and then the most wonderous of creatures crept out into the sun's rays.  It was both round and long, and it was short and scuttling, and it had bristly bristles covering its head, its neck, and its back.  

Otter's nose then twitched, much like the bush had been doing.  What was that marvelous, scuttling creature and would it scuttle over to him and play?  Slowly Otter got to his paws and gave out a low whistle.  The Quilly Thing stopped, sniffed, and scuttled a couple more steps.  Then, suddenly realizing he was being watched, the creature glanced Otter's way and immediately curled up into quite the quilly mass of quills.  Otter sprang over, covering the distance between in 2 bounds, and gave a sniff.  The quills quivered a bit, but no other movement. Otter patted at the quilly ball with one tap of its paw, careful not to harm or be harmed.

"Hey? Hey! Play with me!"

"Go away, big wet thing!"

"Oh come on, I'm not so wet anymore. See, the sun had dried my fur!" Otter's whiskers were by now twitching with pent up frivolity.

"You'll roll me around!"

"No I won't, I promise! Please play with me?"  Another tentative pat on the quills.

"You'll throw me into the water!"

Otter glanced at the water where his friends were cavorting.  "No, I promise, if you don't want to swim with us, you don't have to."

No answer.  In fact, no answer for several minutes and Otter thought maybe the quilly ball had fallen asleep. "Hey, hey what's your name? What ARE you?"

"My name is Jawn, and I am a hedgehog!" Came the reply, somewhat muffled by the fact the quilly ball had wrapped itself tighter. "What are you and what is your name?"

"Oh everyone knows me!"

"I don't!"

"My name is Shurlock and I am an otter!!"

"A what?"

"An otter! come on, take a look at me!! This is what an otter is!"  Shurlock sniffed loudly at Jawn the hedgehog, hoping to make him uncoil and look at him.

"And otters play in water? So you are an otter, so you play in water."

"Well...yes...but I can play on land too.  Play with me?"

"Oh...oh dear...oh dear me..." 

"Oh please, I'm bored and I need a new friend!"  Shurlock sprawled on his tummy with his snout only a few inches from Jawn.  "I promise I won't play rough!"

"Your friends, will they try to toss me around like a ball?"  Jawn began to uncurl a bit, and his small snout was twitching and sniffing in Shurlock's direction. "Because if they do, I shall leave at once!!"

Shurlock lifted his head to glance at the other otters. "No, I'll make sure they leave us alone, and I won't let them hurt you."  He put his snout back down on the ground and smiled at the uncurling hedgie. "Will you play with me then? Will you?"

Jawn righted himself on his short little legs and edged ever so slightly towards Shurlock, sniffing none too daintily at him.  "You've been in the mud?" he asked, sniffing again and then looking around.

"Ohhh yes!!!  I went down the slide a few times! Do you like slides? We can slide right into the shallow water!"

For a moment Jawn just froze, his bright little eyes looking at the young, eager otter. "I saw some otters going down the slide 2 sleeps ago, and it did look like fun..."

Shurlock shook himself from snout to tail, fluffing up his fur as best he could.  "No one is using it now, so we can play on it all we want.  Come on, Jawn!" And with that, the otter bounded off, forgetting that the hedgie's shorter legs might not allow him to keep up. "Oops...sorry...."

"No, nope, I'm fine, I can run. Just please...well, don't get out of my sight.  I can smell you better than I can see you."  With that, Jawn took off after the exuberant otter, his spines all a-twitch at the idea of a new adventure.

Shurlock was looking over the slide; it didn't look very slippery because it had dried out a bit. "Let me take a swim and then I'll get the slide all properly muddy for us!"  Into the pond he slid and immediately his head popped out of the water to see if Jawn was watching.  Seeing that he was, Shurlock them put on just a bit of a display of his swimming skills before he took a run up the slide, trailing pond water the whole way.  "OK, Jawn, watch this!" and down he slid into the shallow water.

"Oh, oh dear, that does look like fun!! How do I get up there?" The hedgie was stomping his little feet in anticipation.

"Aaaahhhh...can you climb?" Shurlock looked down at the hedgie who was sniffing about in the grass.

"I suppose I can but this end looks quite steep," and he sounded very disappointed, turning as if to leave.

The otter looked around and then looked back at his new friend. "Wait, don't go, Jawn!  Maybe...maybe I could carry you, like mother do their kits?  Or you could hang on to my neck?  Please stay and have fun with me!"

The hedgie stopped and looked up at the otter's eager face, considering his kind offer. "Why, I guess I could do that, Shurlock! My quills aren't sharp, and my legs are strong so, yes, let's have some fun!"

The odd little pair was quite the sight. Jawn would either let Shurlock nip him gently by the neck to carry to the top of the slide, or he would crawl onto the otter's neck and hang on.  Soon they were laughing and squealing away, sliding down the slide and into the water, where Shurlock would delight Jawn with his magnificent underwater swimming.  Sometimes when Jawn was floating around, Shurlock would gently nudge him with his nose, making him bob back and forth in the water.  A couple of Shurlock's friends would join in from time to time. Once they all linked paws as they floated on their back, and Jawn scampered across them and squealed with delight as they floated back and forth across the pond.

Finally, late in the afternoon, Shurlock started diving for fish, which Jawn politely declined as he munched on some delicious bugs he had uncovered.  When both had eaten their fill, Shurlock floated near the shore and Jawn climbed carefully onto his furry belly.  Shurlock pushed away from the shore, humming a silly otter tune, and Jawn joined in, sounding quite content.

"Jawn?"

"Yes, Shurlock?"

"Did you have fun today?"

"Oh yes, Shurlock, it was fun and it was quite an adventure too!"

"Yeah, it was fun and I'm glad you thought it was an adventure." 

They floated quietly for a while. "Jawn?"

"Yes, Shurlock?"

"I made a new friend today!"

"Shurlock?"

"Yes, Jawn?"

"So did I!"

 

 

 


End file.
